


Conflict, Time, Photography

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4204824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Irene has a way of looking that still, after all this time, makes Kate feel uncertain."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conflict, Time, Photography

**Author's Note:**

  * For [breathedout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/gifts).



> for havingbeenbreathedout's tumblr prompt: "Literally anything with your Irene and Kate. [...]" Hope you like this little snippet, hbbo. <3
> 
> It probably helps to have read Photophobia to understand what's going on with my Kate and Irene, but I don't think it's necessary. :-)
> 
> The exhibit referenced is the [Conflict, Time, Photography](http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/conflict-time-photography) exhibit in Tate Modern.
> 
> Unbeta'ed.

Irene has a way of looking that still, after all this time, makes Kate feel uncertain. Irene had asked her once, warm, her mouth wet on the shell of Kate's ear, lost in the nighttime sea of their bed – “Why do you like feeling unsafe, Kate,” and Kate still can't explain, why she is drawn to this woman who gives her so much but takes more, and who leaves her every time Kate starts to think she's earned her place.

 

Irene's doing it now, that look. But not at Kate: at the picture. Dissecting it with a gaze. She's supposed to be dead, and has been for months; no message, no call. Kate was left grasping at the straws of her sanity: graffiti that said _the end is near_ , interlocking coffee rings on the wood of café tables, hunched-body beggars on street corners trying to catch her eye. Everything was potentially Irene, and nothing was. Then: two tickets to the exhibit in the mail box in her grubby new flat, the corner carefully kissed with a lipsticked mouth. Kate came close to burning them, and finally grabbed her coat instead, cursing herself.

 

The pictures are of war and time. The time that passes differently in a war zone, the world beyond at full speed. Precious seconds before the bomb. The way everything stops.

 

“I think you're better than him,” Irene says quietly, seriously, and it sparks a brief glow of warmth in Kate's belly despite her anger. She tries not to let Irene see it, but Irene is smiling when Kate looks at her: a knowing, lop-sided smile.

 

Kate turns away. If only there was a way to punish Irene that wouldn't also punish Kate. She notices, with some shame, that she's tugging on a strand of her hair, a nervous habit that she'd developed when her mother was ill.

 

“Christ, stop being so fidgety,” Irene says, and touches Kate lightly on the shoulder. Her nails are short, filed. She's wearing a big boxy ring with a faceted purple stone that couldn't be any less _her_. Her hair is short and straight. It hurts Kate a little to imagine Irene getting her hair cut.

 

There is only one punishment she learned from her mother, and that is: silence.

 

After a while, Irene removes her hand. Kate can feel her look, but doesn't turn to meet it.

 

-

 

Despite the unspoken argument, they stop at the Rothkos, recently returned from an exhibition in Amsterdam. They're not in their usual spot. The lighting in the new setting is too harsh and there are too many people talking. Kate can see it annoys Irene. Last time they visited the paintings Irene told her, afterwards, holding her elbow as they crossed the bridge, about how they had been made for a chapel and needed the silence. She'd been slightly annoyed when Kate had said something formulaic about art being like religion, but had cheered up when the clouds had parted and made the water under the bridge light up so they had to squint. It seems years ago now – lifetimes.

 

“C'mon,” Kate says, in this life, the hard rock on the inside of her softened a little by the way Irene dislikes everyone else. “Let's get out of here.”

 

“I can't stay,” Irene says, still looking at the paintings.

 

“I know,” Kate says, can't avoid it sounding sharp.

 

“I was hoping to talk,” Irene says, and now she looks at Kate, and dares – _dares_ – to look accusing, and inside Kate the bubble of rage bursts and she just, just –

 

– _can't_ , in the end –

 

“Katie,” Irene says, surprised by the suddenness of the hug, squeezing back. “Dear Katie, dear dear Katie –”

 

“Don't call me that,” Kate says, and presses her cheek against Irene's head. She's so angry, and Irene feels so familiar and painful that tears prickle in the corners of her eyes.

 

“Shhhh,” Irene says, and turns her face into the embrace so her lips skim Kate's neck. “Let's get coffee somewhere.”

 

“I hate you,” Kate says. Means it.

 

“I know,” Irene says, and means it too.

 


End file.
